Zero Waste

Several studies have emerged challenging the effectiveness of plastic bag bans. These studies and their coverage in the media are causing some confusion among consumers and legislators. We want to set the record straight, as studies critiquing plastic bag bans don’t account for the broader scope of plastics.

“The best way to handle this is not to build landfill gas-to-energy systems or to capture the methane, because you’re never going to capture all of it,” Pecci said. “The best way to handle this is to keep our food scraps, our yard waste, our textiles, our paper and cardboard out of the landfill entirely.”

Jen Duggan, director of the Vermont Conservation Law Foundation, says cities and counties that have passed bag bans often defined prohibited bags by their thickness or applied measurements requiring that it carry a certain weight a certain distance. “What happened was the bag makers flooded the markets with thicker bags,” she says.

“Plastic bags are used for mere minutes before they poison our communities and our bodies for years,” said Kirstie Pecci, Director of the Zero Waste Project at CLF. “We cannot recycle our way out of this. Banning single-use plastics is the only way to protect our health and environment from this dangerous blight on our communities.”

“Simply put, Vermont is leading the nation in dealing with the toxic blight of single-use plastics,” Jen Duggan, vice president and director of Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) Vermont, told Waste Dive

Connecticut lawmakers are debating a bill right now that would help keep millions of bottles and cans out of Connecticut’s parks, beaches, and streets every year – at no cost to taxpayers. But the bill won’t pass if the plastics industry and big beverage brands get their way.

This blog was first published as an opinion piece in the Connecticut Mirror on April 15, 2019. Suddenly, recycling is costing cities and towns across Connecticut money. The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities reported that China Sword – China’s new policy of refusing United States’ plastic and paper recyclables – has flipped the economics of Connecticut’s…

Several states, and roughly three hundred U.S. cities and towns, have banned single-use plastic bags. Now, several states in New England, including New Hampshire, are considering similar bans. Kirstie Pecci joins The Exchange to talk more about what we can do to reduce plastic pollution.